Development Data Challenge
Description
How can we use aid and government spending data to answer questions about development? Big amounts of money are spent each year on aid and development projects around the world. Where does the money go and what has it achieved? Is possible to find correlations between how money is being spent and how the lives of people are improving? What tools would help make this information more accessible?
On this hack day, we want to bring together hacks and hackers, developers and development practitioners, to interrogate recently released data on development spending and finance. We want you to explore the limits of the data and be a part of demonstrating the added value of open data, how it can make a difference to how aid and development is done.
The event is part of a global Development Data Challenge with a series of hackdays around the world, an initiative of Aidinfo, DfID, The Guardian, Open Aid Register, Open Knowledge Foundation, Publish What You Fund, Sida and World Bank Finances. Experts on datasets such as the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) will be present at the hack to help you get going quickly and to show what tools are already available for exploring the data. Further info about the challenges and suggested datasets to work with can be found on http://developmentdatachallenge.org.
There is also a possibility to continue on what you learn and build during the hack on the following day. The largest newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, invites coders, designers, journalists and open data activists to the HS Open Datajournalism Hackathon on Friday the 22nd. Groups of three will build visualizations or applications that use development data from e.g. the World Bank. The goal is to tell a visual story on global health, children’s welfare or inequality around the world. Registration for the HS Open Datajournalism Hackathon is done separately on http://okfestival.org/hs-open-datajournalism-hackathon/.
Registration in advance not necessary, but if you want to make sure to get one of the 20 seats and some lunch, please let us know that you plan to come! (Link to registration form will be added later.)
Session Host
Pernilla Näsfors, Sida, Sweden, @pernillan, pernilla.nasfors@sida.se
Contributors
Simon Whitehouse - Consultant, Aid Info - @siwhitehouse - http://siwhitehouse.co.uk
Tim Davies, Consultant, Aid Info - @timdavies - http://www.timdavies.org.uk
Steven Flower - Consultant, IATI Technical Secretariat - @stevieflow - http://www.iatistandard.org
Siem Vassen, Managing Partner, Zimmerman & Zimmerman - @siemvaessen - http://www.zimmermanzimmerman.nl/
Bios
Session host: Pernilla Näsfors, Transparency and Social Media Manager, Sida - Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency - @pernillan - http://www.sida.se
Contributors: TBC.
Details
Location: HACK workshop 1 (max 20 participants)
Date & Time: Thur 21, 11.30 - 17.30 (or longer if you want)
Target Group: All sorts of data wranglers, developers, coders, designers, hacks, hackers, data journalists and development practitioners
Topic Stream: Open Development
Session Etherpad page: link